I was pastoring a church in the small town of Waurika, Oklahoma not far from the Oklahoma/Texas border. The church was small and root-bound by a lack of vision in some of the leadership that were unwilling to welcome new people. However, there was a core of people, including most of the young people, who wanted to draw near to God and win lost people. It caused a revival to break out that spread into the community and school.
I began praying for a certain section of town people called “the Circle.” It was a housing project built in a circle that was well known for its rowdy tenants. In fact, even the police hesitated to go into the “Circle” after dark. I believed that if I could reach someone’s heart with the Gospel in the “Circle” that we might witness a mighty harvest of souls. My wife and I prayed daily that we could break through the darkness and reach someone in the “Circle.” After many months it seemed that our praying was not working, but we continued.
The winter after we had begun praying for the inhabitants of the “Circle” a great ice storm mixed with snow fell on our area. It was difficult to drive in, but I had to go to town. As I was carefully driving back I was moving too slowly to climb the street that inclined up to the railroad. I backed carefully into a parking lot to get a run at it. There was not much traffic on the roads and I did not see anyone coming when I took off. However, just as I reached the incline to the railroad track I heard a car honking. The vehicle slid sideways as the driver going much too fast for the conditions swerved around my car.
As they passed, an old haggard woman sitting in the front passenger seat was obviously enraged. Apparently she had spilt a drink on her dress. She turned toward me, face white and ugly with anger, and mouthed words that I could only guess about. When she held up her middle finger I knew what she was saying. I was so upset by the experience that I went home and immediately began praying. I prayed for that woman for the duration of my time in Waurika.
That summer we had an evangelist come for revival meetings. One evening we arrived home from a minister’s fellowship meeting in a nearby town. My wife met me at the door and said, “You have to go now to see a woman who said she must talk to you.”
She told me that one of our new converts, a woman in her twenties, had been taking a shower when the doorbell rang. She wrapped and towel around her and peeked out the window to see an older woman standing on her porch. When she opened the door the woman said, “God told me to ask you to take me to your pastor.”
In the conversation that followed the woman told her that she had had a vision of the young woman’s house. God told her in the vision to go to that house and ask the woman who lived there to take her to her pastor. She made her son drive around town until she found the house in her vision.
I took the evangelist, Robbie, with me as we went to visit the woman. I was amazed and excited to see that the address was in the “Circle.” When she opened the door I could tell that she had been weeping, but her face shined with the glow of a new convert. I told her who I was and her reply was, “My name is Jennie and I need to know if I’m crazy.”
I could tell that she was completely serious about that question. I replied, “You do not seem to be crazy. Why do you ask that question?”
She told us that she had been an alcoholic since she was a young woman. The local judge had sentenced her to a lifetime attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Evidently, she had a fearful reputation not only for drinking, but also for violence. She would fight a woman or a man and was known to use a knife or broken beer bottle.
One day she was stricken with a heart attack and at the hospital it was discovered that she also had terminal cancer. Lying on the hospital bed she began to think about her life and about death. Then she thought about the times someone had tried to tell her about Jesus. With tears flowing she prayed for the first time in her life. She said, “God, if You are real, and don’t even know if there is a Jesus. But if Jesus is real, please show me.”
At that moment she said it felt like something had hit her in the chest. She opened her eyes to see a shaft of light coming from the ceiling and landing on her chest. The release from bondage was instant. She began to weep. She wept tears of joy and relief. Then she began taking the IV and other equipment off her body. That set off an alarm and two nurses came running into the room. One nurse tried to talk her out of removing the equipment, but Jennie said, “I’m going home. I don’t want to be here any longer.”
The nurse replied, “You are very sick and if you leave you will die.”
Jennie replied, “I can die at home as easily as I can die here. Now bring me my clothes—I’m going home.”
Knowing her reputation they knew better than to argue with her. A doctor showed up and agreed to let her go home. They brought her things, had her sign a release form, and a form absolving the hospital of all responsibility, and Jennie left the hospital.
She had a large family bible displayed in a rack on the coffee table. So she opened it up to Psalms, spread it out on the living room floor, and laid with her face in the bible, wept and prayed. Some days she didn’t eat but laid on the floor and prayed. Her behavior alarmed her family. They were as hardened and rough as she had been. The abrupt change in her had shaken them. When her family questioned her she told them what had happened in the hospital. They decided that she had gone insane and made an appointment for her with a psychiatrist. They were going to either have her committed or put on medication.
So Jennie began praying for help to deal with her family. One evening when she was praying she fell asleep and dreamed of the house that she was supposed to go to. She woke up and tried to get her son to take her to the house, but he refused. He convinced her that it was too dark and that he would take her the next morning.
That brings me back to the our meeting with her that evening. After she finished her story she asked again, “Do you think I’m crazy?”
Robbie replied, “No way. I think you’re full of the glory of God.”
I also told her, “No, I believe God has delivered you from darkness.”
I asked her to come to the church meeting that night, but she said that she did not have anything decent enough to wear to church. A few weeks prior to my meeting with Jennie my Mom had passed away. My siblings gave me two of her dresses; one she had worn once and the other had never been worn. I realized that Jennie was about the same size as Mom, so I told her I had some dresses for her.
When I picked up Jennie that evening, she looked so beautiful wearing my Mom’s dress. She had trouble getting into the car due to a bad knee that gave her much pain. She wept and trembled as she walked slowly down the aisle of the church to sit on the front row. All the time she attended our church she sat in that same pew.
That night the glory of God fell on her so powerful that she stood up and danced. I am not normally accepting of such demonstrations in a church meeting because I have witnessed too much contrived activity and unchecked emotionalism, which is distracting. But I knew that Jennie was completely honest. She had never been to a church meeting before, never heard preaching, and never witnessed anyone dancing in a church building.
After the meeting I told her that she had danced and she was at first alarmed. She apologized and asked me to forgive her. I told her that it was okay and that it had blessed me to see her rejoicing so strongly about the Lord’s work in her life. The she said, “Wait! I couldn’t have danced. My knee is so bad I can barely walk, much less dance.”
I replied, “Well it isn’t bad anymore. I saw you dance and whatever God does He doesn’t take it back.”
She stood up and walked around completely pain-free, and then started dancing again. We were weeping and praising God for the great victory that we had just witnessed. It was not only that God saved a vile woman, but it was how He had saved her, how He brought her to us, and what He was still doing in her life.
The following week we took her to the appointment with the psychiatrist. She returned from the examination with the verdict. When the psychiatrist had asked about her behavior she told him about her salvation and everything else including the healing and dress. He called for his assistant and said, “Get this woman out of here! She’s religious!” And that was Jennie’s victory over her family’s attempt to commit her.
Over the next several weeks I baptized 13 souls who had been won to the Lord by Jennie. Many of them were from the “Circle.” Some of her family members were saved. She went after the worst in society because they were the only people she knew. She won her best friend to the Lord. Frankie was a small woman, but just as mean as Jennie had been. Frankie would become so drunk and high that on occasions in order to get her to calm down and sleep her husband would hold her against a wall and hit her in the chin. Evidently, on several occasions he had knocked her unconscious early on Sunday morning.
The Sunday morning they came to church I hugged them. Later in the Sunday school class I felt something crawling on my sideburn. It was a flea. That morning the Holy Spirit convicted Frankie and her husband and they were both gloriously delivered and became faithful Believers. The change in their nature and appearance was amazing.
Jennie won Frankie’s dad, Blackie, to the Lord. Blackie was so filthy that Jennie had forbade him to sit on her couch until she put a towel on it. It was said that Blackie never took a bath. A few days after after Jennie won him to the Lord, Blackie died suddenly of a heart attack. I went to the funeral and was amazed at his appearance. I had seen him before he was saved and his skin was dark. In the casket Blackie appeared peaceful and his skin was as light as mine. Jennie explained that after he was saved Blackie took a bath and put on clean clothes. She said that no one in the “Circle” recognized him.
Several years later after pastoring in Missouri, Cheryl and I moved to North Carolina to pioneer a church. Weeks after we began our work in Clinton, North Carolina we received a call from a woman in Waurika, She informed us that Jennie had died of a heart attack. We were very sad. So I was surprised when I went to the post office and discovered a letter from Jennie. She had written it the night that she died.
The letter was heartbreaking. Jennie wrote that she had moved with her husband to a neighboring city. The church there was cold and had little or no concern for lost people. She said that the church she was attending did not want her there. They became annoyed that she invited the worst of society to attend. She said that her heart was broken by their coldness and that she wished she could just go home to heaven. God granted her wish that night.
I have thought about Jennie many times, about her hunger for God, her compassion for the lost, and her pure love for people. I thought about the time the church was invited to a Christmas party at one of our board member’s house. I observed with amazement as Jennie sat in a chair surrounded by intelligent and wealthy people. She spoke in her rustic language about what God had done for her, about her love for Christ Jesus, and the way the Holy Spirit ministered to her. When she spoke people stood about her captivated, as if they were listening to a great sage.
Now she is in heaven. I know that many people, including some Christians, regard heaven as a myth. But I believe that it is real because I believe in Jesus Christ who declared that He would prepare it for us. I will meet Jennie there some day. I have no doubt that when I see her she will be with Frankie and the other ones that she won to the Lord.
However, I believe that Jennie will also be with my Mom. Mom and Jennie will get along very well. As Believers in Christ Jesus they were a lot alike. Although Mom never drank or smoked, she had a difficult life and was a simple and honest woman. Her personality was a lot like Jennie’s. They may be holding hands and laughing when they see me coming.
Jennie will thank Mom for the dress. Mom will likely be filled with delight realizing that the dress she had not worn was never meant for her. She will smile recognizing it was the providence of God that a new Believer in Christ Jesus would wear it for the first time. It makes me wonder what I might leave behind that will be used for the glory of God. I hope that it is as glorious as Mom’s new dress the night that Jennie Howard wore it to the church meeting.
Oh, and one other thing. One morning in Waurika when I was praying something very strange happened. During my prayer I reached the point where I usually prayed about the woman who shot me the finger on that icy winter day. A revelation broke into my mind so clear that I was startled and sat upright. I began weeping and brimmed over with excitement. When I calmed down a bit I got on the phone and called Jennie.
“Jennie,’ I said. “Do your remember when you were riding with your son on the icy street last winter and a man pulled out in front of your car? Remember you spilled your drink, cursed him, and gave him the middle finger?”
Jennie replied, “Yes pastor, and I am so sorry I did that,”
“Jennie, that man was me.”
She began to weep and said, “Oh Pastor, I’m so sorry, Please forgive me.”
I replied something to the effect, “No, Jennie. I don’t have to forgive you of what God has already forgiven for. Besides, if it had not happened I would have not prayed specifically for you and for so long. God brought us together. You have to see that God worked through that incident.”
God did not cause Jennie to react the way that she did, but He ordered that our paths would cross. Little did I know that she was the answer to my prayer about the “Circle.” She had no clue that the man she flashed the international sign of ill will to would one day love her with the love of Christ. Her appearance had changed so much from when I first met her that I did not recognize her as the woman I had been praying for. Where the angry ravages of sin had been was a face that radiated with humbleness, love, and the glory of a spiritual new birth. Had someone told me on that icy day that the woman in that car would one day wear my Mom’s new dress, I would have likely replied, “Are you insane?” They might reply, “No, I just believe in the glorious grace of God.”
Verified by:
Dennie and Sandra Brown
Cheryl A. Fisher
Wonderful!
What a marvelous testimony to God’s faithfulness in answering our prayers for the lost!! This gives me hope for my children – no matter how ‘hopeless’ it all looks outwardly. Thank you so much for sharing. I just love it!!
Yes, that is encouraging!
What I found a blessing in this story is that it testifies to the fact that God is still working! God is still moving through the Holy Spirit, people still do receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and gifts of the Spirit (I did!) and God still does heal people and perform miracles! We can hear God’s voice, He does communicate with us because we are His sheep and we hear His voice! He still does give us dreams and visions, and the gift of prophesy and such are still for today! It even testifies to that in the Bible! And all of this is still going on because He’s still God! It’s not just the devil who can do ‘signs and wonders’ (of an occult nature)! Salvation is one of the biggest miracles, taking the hardest and dirtiest of sinners and changing them into holy saints full of the glory of God shining on their faces!
But I get so tired of all these unbelievers who think that God does not work in any of these ways anymore. They think the gifts are over, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is something that occurs esoterically as a presupposition in cyberspace or some other domain with no one noticing. And that all emotions and experiences must be counterfeit. Like God does not speak to His people anymore in any way. He did in the New Testament, and He still does it today! I have heard Him and I know. What He told me came true and I know. And He still does miracles too! Healings and other supernatural things like that. I found one church where the pastor seemed okay but then we got into a dispute over that and he thought that God does not work through the miraculous anymore because that was just a sign during the ‘apostolic age,’ but that’s not what the Bible teaches! He still does miracles today! And they twist the Bible to fit their false doctrine explaining it all away. They sit in their stuffy way, with smiling masks on at best, no passion for God or zeal for worshiping Him, not one hand is lifted in praise, they say they love God but it sure doesn’t look like it! And they treat other Christians like it says in this post, as cold as ice. Their love has waxed as cold as ice. But when you are walking in fellowship with God, you see that these things are real. It’s just how God works!
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Anna,
I believe and rejoice in this testimony from Pastor Fisher. I am in a Pentecostal church that understands the importance of biblical discernment. We must be like the Bereans. Anna, there are false prophets and apostles out there. False teachings, false miracles, false sign and wonders. (Bethel Redding is a classic example of this.) Alluring false “Christs” as well. So how do we deal with all this? Warren Smith offers this reminder about His Word: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=27896
Yes, I agree! I am all for Biblical discernment. In a practical sense and that is one of my supernatural gifts from the Holy Spirit. He has shown me so much it could fill volumes about what is going on in the apostasy of the church today and where it is leading. As a result, I have been warning the sheep for a long time.
In fact, this lines up with the comment I was going to leave anyway.
I am Pentecostal in the sense that I have had the baptism of the Holy Spirit and received certain gifts. (I do not subscribe to everyone getting the gift of tongues since Scripture clearly teaches that not all receive that gift and if that were the case, it would be chaos. We all get diverse gifts to edify the body like different parts edifying the whole body, without which such edification would be impossible for the church body, if everyone was a mouth or a hand or a foot, then there is no body. And of course no occultic signs and wonders and none of that barking like dogs nonsense! Signs and wonders come from both sources, light and darkness.) I know that ‘revelation’ is still for today because that is a gift, like prophecy. I know miracles still occur today, from God. There is the real from God, and the counterfeit from the occult. I know well of the apostasy in the church such as at Bethel, etc. Now just because there is a counterfeit, does not nullify the real, you can’t have a counterfeit without a real original.
When it comes to communicating with God, I know we have that access as well because we are in a relationship with a Living God. He speaks to my heart and I know it is Him. The Bible backs that up when Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me…” Well I do hear HIS voice. It is not a demon or some other influence. I have real experiences of God through the Holy Spirit. God does reveal hidden things to us and show us what is to come, as Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do, teach us all things and reveal to us what was to come (Last Supper in John). It is only hidden from those who don’t seek Him and follow His Truth. I also have authentic emotions that come from the Holy Spirit, such as love, peace, joy, etc. as it says in Romans 5; 5 and Galatians 5; 22-23, etc. But it seems that some want to call all that is labeled as an ‘experience’ or ’emotions’ as invalid. Sure if they are not leading to truth or something like that. But aligned with truth, yes they are real and valid. The same with enjoying God’s presence. I enjoy communing with the Lord and His presence and hear His voice and all these things. It is just in the real way and not the occult way as in Sarah Young’s ‘Jesus Calling.’ There are multiple heresies in that book and others like it, of course. But it is just as heretical to claim that ALL experiences and emotions and such things are of the occult. That actually is bordering on blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Then there is the issue of meditation. There was an issue that came up on a certain discernment website about Christian versus pagan meditation. The quote was actually accurate in describing the difference. Yet one was left with the impression that all meditation was bad and of the occult and there was no such thing as Christian meditation. One person I know said they asked about it, their comment did not get posted, nor did they receive an answer. I found that disconcerting. And on top of that, I know that there IS such a thing as Christian meditation. I will supply the Bible verses for proof.
Psalm 1; 2, 4; 4, 16; 8, 19; 14, 63; 6, 77; 12, 104; 34, 119; 15-16, 78-148, 143; 5, 145; 5
Philippians 4; 8
Joshua 1; 8
Genesis 24; 63
Like it stated in the quote, you have something of the Lord in your mind and heart that you think on. That is how I do Christian meditation. The answer to my question was really very simple to give! Only I answered it correctly myself, something that a big discernment website was unable to do! It gets very frustrating.
God bless you brother!
Hi Anna. I would like to hear you explain what the ‘revelatory’ gifts are. I believe you most likely are talking about the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge, also discerning of spirits. Is that correct? I have the discerning of spirits gift, and possibly the other two.
I think I am half-Pentacostal. Is that possible,LOL?
What say you?…………………..Ken Hall
A very beautiful and true testimony of the Love of God reaching into the depths of deeply lost humanity and setting them free. Jennie was a nothing as far as Society goes, but to those who met her and knew her she was a rare and lovely inspiration! God still reaches down into the depths of broken lives and loves them beyond comprehension!
Yes. God does love the downtrodden and poor, the defeated sad souls. But to be encouraged to go into the ‘highways and byways, the bushes and and hedges’ ‘from the pulpits’ is almost non-existent in today’s churches.
I remember a while back that ministerial students at the local Bible colleges (Cleveland, Chattanooga, TN) would be require their students to ‘hit the streets’ with the loving Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. What happened is this thing called apostasy, and today most churches, colleges, and seminaries are right here: “10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” [2Th 2:10-12 KJV] That time is here and now!! The ‘little horn’ is about to be revealed.
I pray that the true ‘fundamentalists’ will be working on real evangelism while the day is still here.
Pastor Cedric, You are a gifted writer,and a very humble servant for our Lord.LuvYa .
Bring them in and pray. God will clean them up. Not just their clothes or skin, but most of all their souls. This is a wonderful Mother’s Day Story
Just had a feeling of dejuvu. It breaks my heart when church people are not accepting of all people. I remember taking men from the local rehab to church and some of my church family ignored them. One man had never been in church and one of our churches busy bodies ask us to have him remove the cig. He had put behind his ear for later. God loves us all.
Note: This is not a sermon meant for anyone particular. I just felt some clarification was needed regarding a certain phrase. See below.
We must be cautious with the phrase at church of being ‘accepting of all people.’ It is greatly misused these days for another agenda. A typical example is misusing the fact that ‘God loves us all,’ etc. Sure, but that’s why He gave His only begotten Son to save us. Because we are all sinners in need of repentance. And when we get saved and we repent of our sin, we leave it behind and that is when we become part of the true church of God. Now I’m not talking about outreach to the lost, or helping homeless, and all of that, it is great if they enter the ‘church building’ and hear the gospel preached, it may result in them getting saved and joining His real church, made up of born again believers. But you hear things that hint that since ‘God loves us all,’ we are all saved, but no! We can all be saved, but we are not all saved until we come to Him for salvation, which He offers to us because He loves us. Then you get the sin agenda where they want everyone to embrace and celebrate sin and they refer to this as ‘being accepting of everyone’ (everyone’s sin, like homosexuality). The point of salvation is to become God’s holy people who turn away from sin, and that is what the church is made up of, not unrepentant sinners. Instead of exiting sin and the world, now the apostate church is going backwards, into it and letting it in. This is against what the Bible teaches. I know that sanctification does not happen in one day, but the question is which direction are we moving in? Then there is so much talk of ‘not being perfect.’ Sure, we won’t be perfect this side of heaven, but again, are we getting cleaner or dirtier as time goes by? Is being ‘imperfect’ just an excuse for a swivel tray of sin in our lives? And then there is the incorrect phrase: “we are all ‘just sinners’…”. Sorry, but no, we are not. We are all born as sinners, yes. When we get saved, we turn from our sin and repent. We won’t be perfect yet, but sanctification runs its course and we do get holier if and as we surrender to God and let Him clean us up. But we are no longer ‘sinners.’ Rather, now we are ‘saints.’ (Sanctified ones). This does not mean we will never sin, but the term does not apply to us anymore. Yet they use that line like a free pass to every sin in the world, and that is totally contrary to what the Bible teaches. If you still think of yourself with the identity of ‘sinner,’ the devil still has you in his grip, without the new nature of the new creation that you are to be!
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It’s good to have you back on the blog. Are you on any online forums by any chance? I would love to have some type of an online fellowship with brothers and sisters in the Lord.
What a good true story! This should be sent to “Unshackled”, the radio drama at Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. I’m serious!
P.S. I am so tired of clicking “I’m not a robot” after clicking pictures of taxis and store fronts. ha ha ha
Sorry. We had a real problem with that plug in. It would not allow people to comment for the past three weeks! Our webmaster finally deleted it, thank God. Hopefully, it will be much better in the future.